I live in Weehawken, New Jersey and I lost my wife a couple years ago and always wanted to plant roses on our terrace in her memory.
I purchased three 26 x 26 x 26 white galvanized, steel planters. I put half inch legs on the bottom of all of them around the perimeter. Each planter came with two holes, and I drilled an additional four per planter six holes total.
I’ve included pictures of the roses on trellises from the nursery photos of the planters photos of the legs I placed on the bottom of the planters photos of the holes. I put some screening at the bottom of the planters and planted them.
I know they do go through a shock period or something like that and need time to adjust but many many leaves are turning yellow, and the dead roses were trimmed. I clipped them on an angle above the 5 leaves
I’m in the process now of removing the trellises that came with the planters, and I have installed a trellis on the wall behind the planters which I will start to direct the canes.
I’m so very nervous about losing these roses they are for my wife. This is a memorial garden that I’m building for her. My heart is hurting because I feel like I failed and I don’t know what to do.
The photo of the white planters is after I painted them they were black and retaining heat so I sanded them primed them and painted them with white claw the temperature now and the sun is lovely
I ask for anyone to give me advice and direction because again thats just my heart hurting right now
I didn’t realize I could only post one picture. I’m sorry I mentioned that I was supplying a lot of pictures and I see that I cannot.
I can show you if you email me I would be happy to send you all the pictures
Davide Dvorak
646-235-7227
davidedvorak@gmail.com
Welcome Davide! First, I’m so sorry for your loss, but don’t despair! The photo you supplied look pretty doggone good! It is completely natural for rose leaves to yellow and fall. As the plants grow, new growth shades the older foliage, reducing the light it requires to produce chlorophyll. Roses are the perfect commune. A leaf must generate more food than it requires or the plant removes the chlorophyll from it, which turns it usually yellow, it dies and falls off. The plant then uses that reabsorbed chlorophyll to create new growth and foliage. So, as the plant gets larger, it shades out older leaves at the bottom, which are recycled, die and fall off. All perfectly normal. Actually, pretty much all plants do it. If you’ve ever looked inside a shrub or tree, you should notice there isn’t much foliage inside it as that foliage wouldn’t receive enough light for it to “pay its way”.
The foliage on your plants looks healthy. The new growth tips look healthy. That’s actually quite a lot of foliage and cane mass for that square foot space. Eventually, you will probably end up with so much rose in that area, they will begin shading each other out, resulting in foliage and canes yellowing for the precise reason I explained above. Should that happen, you will need to selective prune out some of each plant’s growth to allow for air and light to circulate through them to reduce pest and disease issues.
Painting the planters which was a great idea. The roots expand outward to the warm (or hot) planter walls and then grow in a circle, following them as they grow. If the pot walls are hot, the extreme heat often literally cooks the roots and cooks the moisture out of the root balls. Painting them white should help reduce the extremes in heat they may experience. If you have future difficulties with extremes in temperatures, you may need to wrap the planters with an insulating layer of Styrofoam or insulating blankets to prevent overly hot or freezing issues.
I’ll be happy to email you so you can send the photos and I’ll be happy to post what the system will permit me to post. You honestly should remove your phone number and email address for security sake. Thank you, Kim
